10 Management Tales From George Steinbrenner, The Legendary Boss

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who passed away today at age 80, was a legendary boss.

Since he bought the team for less than $10 million in 1973, his determination to outplay and outspend the competition helped the Yankees win 11 pennants and 7 World Championships.

He was a notoriously fickle, tempermental, and demanding leader. He changed managers 23 times -- Billy Martin alone was fired and re-hired five separate times over the course of a decade.

In recent years, the Yankees' big spending ways have fallen out of style. Books like Moneyball brought attention to teams that got better results with smaller budgets by relying on statistics to find value players.

But Steinbrenner’s ambitions kept the Yankees growing as a global brand -- and, for better or for worse, his larger-than-life personality and epic leadership have put him in the history books as "The Boss."